Dev Log | Wii U Update, Physical Rewards, Indy Pop Con!

Attention Jumpers!

We’ve got news from the H.S.A! The Hive Jump team at Graphite Lab has been keeping busy since the last update. Read below for some news regarding Wii U progress, physical rewards and some frequently asked questions!

Wii U fans keep your blasters at the ready… we’re coming soon.

Back in March we sent out a celebratory note to all of you that we’d submitted to Nintendo of America for certification. Our review took a little longer than expected because of a few issues regarding our developer registration. However, thanks to the awesome work of some folks at Nintendo those issues got resolved quickly and we went into review in early April.

The results from our review were a little bittersweet. We weren’t approved for release. However, the rejection list included only few issues that needed to be corrected to earn approval. We didn’t waste any time. We jumped right on them and began work to get the issues repaired.

To share a few details, one of the corrections related to how our game alerts players when unused controllers are disconnected from the console during play. Since we support a variety of controllers on Wii U we needed to ensure this process was consistent and compliant with the guidelines. We also got flagged for a few issues relating to how we use the Home Button on the GamePad controller. On some screens, using the Home Button would cause the game to crash.

Suffice it to say, these weren’t super-fast fixes but our engineering team worked diligently to get those issues repaired. We’re happy to say we’ve now gotten those critical systems fixed and they’ve been tested internally. HOORAH!… right?

Well, during this testing phase, we’ve uncovered a few more issues that we want to cleaned up before we re-submit. These are important (such as how some UI elements are handled), and while we’ve got the chance, we want to get these issues cleared as well. We’re very hopeful that this re-submission will yield an approval and have us on our way to the eShop!

FAQ

I sold my Wii U, can I change to a Steam Key / I’m loving those Wii U features can I change to a Wii U key?

We’re happy to deliver your copy of Hive Jump on whatever platform you choose. Email us at info@hivejump.com (preferably from your backer email account) and let us know your name / preferred platform. We’ll get you fixed up.

Is the approval of Nintendo of America also an approval for the other markets (EU and Japan)?

No, those are separate. We’ve sent out a questionnaire to all of our Wii U backers asking for your region. If you are a Wii U backer outside of the US, please email us at info@hivejump.com.

Why didn’t you just launch on Switch instead?

First, we wanted to make good on our commitment to our Wii U backers and do everything we could to get this game out on the promised platform. To ask those backers to buy a Switch to play Hive Jump seemed a little uncool.

Second, the decision to support Switch it’s not totally up to us. Nintendo has a plan for their partners, and we’ve not been given any official invitation to bring Hive Jump to the Switch at this time. We would love to do it, but we respect that Nintendo has a process for their latest platform which will take some conversation to get rolling.

Third, it’s an entirely new platform which would deserve a unique design treatment. “Porting” from Wii U simply isn’t what we’d want to do (and isn’t what we’ve done with the Wii U coming from PC either). So, a Switch conversation would start with the question: “How could we make Hive Jump a unique offering for the Switch?”

What is the state of the Steam version? Will there be updates?

The steam version is content complete. Our team is solely focused on Wii U and then physical rewards for the short term. Our testers have been continuing to review some issues with the multiplayer desyncs and have recently put in some tracking systems which will help us better identify when desyncs occur. Beyond that, we’re still researching options to improve the connectivity and reliability of the game.

Where are my other rewards?!

They are in the works! We’ve been delayed by the Wii U progress described above, but are nearly past those issues and should be able to resume work on these very soon. Several of our artists have been compiling art for the art book and jumper guide, we have the hoodies and shirts designed and have new partners for printing selected, too! Thanks for being patient and for being an amazing group of backers!

Indy POP CON!

Graphite Lab will be returning to Indy Pop Con July 7 – 9, 2017! Last year we were absolutely shocked to bring home the Top Prize as well as Best Gameplay. We’re proud to be returning so we can celebrate the teams in competition this year!

We’ll have Hive Jump on the show floor, so stop by if you are around and say hi!

Would you like to know more?

As always, please leave us questions and comments below. We love hearing from members of the Jump Corps! If you’d like to get quarterly updates about what Graphite Lab is up to, please sign up here!